Pictured above is a new
Enviro200 for RapidKL, a bus operator in Kuala Lumpur, who have
recently placed an order for forty Enviro500s (see News 16th May).
Rather belatedly, a new page has tonight been added to the section of the site.

25th May 2015

Photograph courtesy and
copyright of Alan Wong

Long Win continue to receive new
ADL Enviro500NGs, the fleet now totalling twenty. 6519
is pictured
earlier today at the airport bus terminus, having been registrered on
19th May.

24th May 2015

Further photographs of
the KMB hybrid model, ATH2, have just been added (KLE15017).

A new page has tonight
been added to the section of the site for the
new 'Rickshaw Bus' Dennis Tridents.

23rd May 2015

Details of the KMB hybrid
model set for release in Hong Kong tomorrow have now been
confirmed. Produced by Roadshow Creations it features ATH2 on
route 1A to Star Ferry and is limited to 2,000 pieces (KLE15017).

According to the
excellent Across
website, the first New World First Bus Wrights Gemini 2 was today
allocated fleet no. 4501 and registered TK3778.

Noted undergoing testing
today was this New
World First Bus Youngman. My thanks to Ying Tang Hing for allowing me
to share his photograph.

21st May 2015

These two Dennis Dragons
were released on 15th May. Both feature 3N112 (DJ8292), one on
route 1A to Sau Mau Ping Central (180104)
whilst the other is on route 111 to Ping Shek (180105).
Similar advertising is carried by both models, this being covered to
avoid legal issues.

Citybus continue to
register
their new Youngman single-deckers, the latest being 1843, registered on
8th May and noted in service today.

A new page featuring the
new KMB MAN/Gemilang demonstrator has tonight been added to the section of the site.

The bus terminus at Wan
Chai Ferry
has today been relocated to enable the construction of
the new Exhibition station, part of MTR's Shatin to
Central
Link (SCL).

17th May 2015

Latest update
2000hrs Sat 16th May

Photograph courtesy and
copyright of Alan Wong

My thanks to Alan Wong
for allowing me to share his 'day' shots of ATENU500.

Photograph courtesy and
copyright of Eddy Sumantri

RapidKL, the bus operator
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia officially received their new
Alexander Dennis Enviro500 double deck buses yesterday from the
manufacturer.

A
total of forty double-deck buses are on order and yesterday saw the
first 3 unveiled in a handover ceremony. It is expected that these
buses will enter revenue service in September as considerable driver
and route familiarisation is required.

My thanks to Eddy Sumantri for the above news.

and recent news from
Singapore.................

LTA
AWARDS FIRST TENDERED BUS PACKAGE TO TOWER TRANSIT GROUP LIMITED

News Release 8th May 2015

1.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has
awarded the contract for
the first bus package to Tower Transit Group Limited. Starting from the
second quarter of 2016, Tower Transit, a bus operator from the U.K.,
will operate the new Bulim Bus Depot and 26 bus services from the
Jurong East, Bukit Batok and Clementi Bus Interchanges. Tower Transit
will get an estimated total fee of $556.0 million[1] over
the five-year contract period.

2.
Tower Transit was set up in 2013 by
shareholders of Transit
Systems, which has operated public bus networks in Australia since
1996. Tower Transit has since seen steady growth in its London
operations under a similar bus contracting model. It currently employs
about 2,000 employees and operates about 650 buses in the U.K.,
carrying over 115 million passengers a year.

3.
Commuters can expect higher service
levels as all bus services
will have scheduled headways of no more than 15 minutes for both
directions during the morning and evening peak periods, with at least
half of them having scheduled headways of no more than 10 minutes. Of
these, the feeder services will run at intervals of 6 to 8 minutes.

4.
Mr Chew Men Leong, LTA’s Chief
Executive, said, “The award of the
first bus package is a major milestone and marks a very exciting time
for the Singapore bus industry. The restructuring of the public bus
industry and the injection of more competition will bring about even
higher bus service levels for commuters. With bus contracting, the
Government will plan bus services and can thus be more responsive to
changes in ridership and commuter needs.”

ComfortDelgro/SBS Transit has launched 2 buses, a Scania
K230UB & Mercedes Benz Citaro with "ComfortDelgro celebrates
SG50" for Singapore's 50th birthday - More information @ https://www.facebook.com/joinNTWU/posts/881451961893184.
The buses have an eye-catching little red dot (literally) at
the rear of the bus, while the bus is wrapped in a ribbon/logoless SBS
Transit livery styled advertisement. The interior has also
been stickered to match the little red dot theme that's going on to
celebrate this SG50 event. It is unknown if there are more than 2 buses
that may receive this advertisement in the future.

SMRT Buses has
launched a new advertisement (currently second
advertisement on their Enviro fleet after SMB5003U), this
Enviro SMB5026D has been fitted with a lighting film technology that
illuminates the sides of the bus. The advertisement features
Huawei's new Honor handset in a very striking blue themed advertisement.

"Called, eLumiNEX, the technology is a "backlit film technology" that
allows for the illumination of "large-format print surfaces", SMRT
Media said in a press release on Thursday (May 14) to announce the
launch. The lit surfaces are activated only when the
headlights of the bus are turned on, said Elaine Koh, Director of
Marketing, SMRT Media. The technology is a result of of a
collaboration between SMRT Media, A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of
Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), A*STAR’s technology transfer arm,
ETPL, and local small and medium-size enterprise (SME) large-format
printer, Film Screen. " (Source : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/smrt-bus-to-light-up/1846592.html)

My special thanks to Mark Chua for the above updates and photographs.

Citybus will cease to
operate route
route 3B and 70M and New World First Bus will do the same for its
routes 43X and 46X from tomorrow (17th May) in
a rationalisation
of routes as
a
result of the extension of the MTR to Kennedy Town.

16th May 2015

Real
buses dominate today's news.....

Photograph courtesy and
copyright of Man Fai Wong

Photograph courtesy and
copyright of Tom Chen

The latest new arrival
for Kowloon Motor Bus is this MAN . No further
details are currently known.

Being UK based, I am
reliant on the generosity of Hong Kong based enthusiasts for providing
current news and photographs, and the above photographs
are such
examples. As reported yesterday, recently converted to part open-top is
New World First Bus Dennis Trident 1215, seen yesterday undergoing
testing. My thanks to MOC Group for allowing me to use this photograph.
At the same time my thanks, as always, to regular contributors Dennis
Law and Bobby Liu.

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Keith Wood

Such
generosity is not limited to
those enthusiasts based in Hong Kong, as the above photograph
of
KMB ATH2 proves! Regular contributors Keith Wood and Donald MacRae are
always quick to provide photographs of the prototype, more often than
not with the correct route and destination of the model!

My thanks to all those mentioned above and the numerous other
contributors that make the site what it is today.

15th May 2015

And news of another new
release,
again featured on the 'shop2gather.com' website, is KMB Wrights Gemini
2 AVBWU303 (SL8260). It carries all over advertising for
HK2gather.com. It is on route 268X with a destination of Mong Kok
Jordan Express. Quantities are not yet known, nor is the release date,
but is is expected to retail for HK$468.

The first New World First
Bus
Alexander ALX500 bodied Dennis Trident (1215 - KM5423) to be converted
to part open-top for Rickshaw Bus operations was noted undergoing
trials today.

14th May 2015

Expected to
be released on
23rd May is this Kowloon Motor Bus hybrid ADL Enviro500NG ATH2 (TA2132)
on route 1A to Star Ferry.

.....
and the real thing, taken on 15th November 2014, albeit with the
alternate destination of route 1A

13th May 2015

Kowloon Motor
Bus and Long Win Bus,
wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Transport International Holdings, have
placed an order with ADL Asia for 147 (KMB 126/LWB 21) 12-metre
Enviro500s and 139 (KMB 100/LWB 39) 12.8 metre Enviro 500s.
All
are completely knocked down and the order is worth UKŁ65.1
million.

Reading the announcement I am pleased to see the
defination of the term “12-Metre Enviro 500 Double-deck CKD Bus(es)” as
a set of Enviro 500 Double-deck CKD Bus comprising a unit of ADL
Trident 12-Metre Euro V 3-Axle Bus Chassis and its corresponding unit
of Enviro 500 (Next
Generation)
Air-conditioned Double-deck CKD Body Kit.

My thanks to Simon Ayres for providing details of this announcement.

11th May 2015

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Dennis Law

New World First
Bus has officially revealed their 'Arts Bus' during an
official ceremony on yesterday. This year's livery has been applied to
11.3-metre Enviro500 4040 (SL2101).

While
this bus will be normally deployed on NWFB's regular routes, a special
trip to Sha Tau Kok in relation to this year's 'Arts Bus' campaign is
expected to be held very soon. In addition, Citybus Enviro400 7038 has
also received another version of this year's 'Arts Bus' livery.

10th May 2015

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Lee Tin Yau

I am grateful to Lee Tin
Yau who managed to
get these snapshots of the 'shop2gather.com' liveried KMB Gemini 2
mentioned in yesterday's news - as the saying goes, 'a picture paints a
thousand words'!

Pictured above are the
two
12-metre KMB Olympians due for release in Hong Kong tomorrow. They
are the products of Roadshow Creations Ltd. The top photograph
shows 3AV97 (GP6895) on route 681 to Ma On Shan Town Centre (KLE15001).
Below is 3AV90 (GP8186) on route 118 to Siu Sai Wan (KLE15002).
Each is
limited to 800 pieces. New pages will be added shortly.

Kowloon Motor Bus Wrights
Gemini 2
AVBWU311 (SP8754) has received an interesting all over livery that
consists of four KMB liveries, applied from
front to back:- champagne, non air-con
cream, air-con
white and allover red with cream relief. This advertises a new
on-line model store 'www.shop2gather.com'.
This appears to be part of the Roadshow brand and I assume is also
linked to the two model released today under the Roadshow Creations Ltd
brand.

Further interesting news announced on this site is the release of a KMB
Hybrid bus model later this month.

Any further information would be most welcome.

8th May 2015

These two KMB 12-metre
Volvo Olympians are set for release on Saturday 9th May.

7th May 2015

Further to yesterday's
news, above are two photographs showing the models with decals applied.

5th May 2015

Due to be released
shortly are these two versions of Kowloon Motor Bus Dennis Dragon
3N112, one on route 111 and the other on route 1A. Produced by Best
Choose it is understood that they will include Marlboro adverts. It is
understood that Hong Kong legislation prevents tobacco
advertising to be applied to such models.

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Bac Wh

Citybus Enviro500 8115
has received this all-over advert featuring a London Routemaster.

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Bac Wh

With the imminent retirement of
the Rickshaw Sightseeing Bus Volvo Olympians (VA51 has already
retired) New World First Bus are using standard buses as a
stop-gap until the replacement Tridents are ready.

4th May 2015

Photograph courtesy and copyright of
Dennis Law

Kowloon Motor Bus has
applied this 'red
line' livery to the very first Dennis Trident for Hong Kong, ATR1. This
resembles the original livery carried when this bus entered
service in 1997. Rumours are that this livery is still be be modified -
the bus is due to be retired later this year.